Family History

A large purpose of our trip was to see places our ancestors lived.  We didn't plan on doing original research.  Most records have been moved out of churches to government record offices and they are largely available online.  It is probably easier to research family history from home than it is by driving around England.  We did gain a greater understanding of the lives our ancestors lived and the challenges they faced.  We also learned the more preparation we had done before we came, the more we were able to learn in England. 

Before our trip, we learned Sarah and Becky's ancestor, Thomas Martin, was christened in St. John's Minster in Preston.  We stopped by to see it.  We learned the original St. John's Minster was built in the 11th century and was crumbling by the 1800s.  The old church was pulled down and a new one built in the 1850s.  Our ancestor had moved by then, so it was unlikely he was ever in this church.

 St. John's Minster had a small chapel dedicated to the Lancashire regiments.  The Lancashire guards took the largest and most tattered flag with them when they went to fight in the American Revolution.  The other flags are from the Crimean War.

We went to Sunderland because Brandan's ancestor, Alexander Morrison, arrived there in the 1700s.  Generations of Morrison's lived in Sunderland until they joined the church and moved to the United States.  Two ancestors were involved in the Victoria Hall accident.  One was killed and one survived. A total of 183 children died when an exit in a theater was blocked.  This memorial to those who died is outside the Sunderland museum.  Victoria Hall was nearby, but was bombed during WWII and no longer exists.

 St. Peter's Church in Sunderland is probably the oldest church we visited, founded in AD 674 by the Venerable Bede.  Some of Brandan's ancestors attended this church.  There is a construction project outside the church to build a community vegetable garden in the grounds.  Vegetables growing near a church might seem unusual, but the Bede was a monk and the monks who lived here in the 7th century probably had a garden, too.

 Other ancestors attended the nearby All Saints Church.  This church was founded by some dissenters who disagreed with the management of St. Peter's Church down the road.  Today the 2 churches, plus one more called St. Andrew's, are all part of the same parish.

 We stopped by the Mere Knolls Cemetery in Monkwearmouth.  Monkwearmouth is a suburb of Sunderland.  Brandan's Morrison ancestors are buried here.  The cemetery was huge, it was late and cold, so Brandan just looked through the cemetery quickly.  He found some Morrison graves.  Next task-- see if they're related to him.

 In Sheffield we went to a different church named St. John's.  Brandan has Fowler ancestors who are buried in the St. John's parish cemetery.  This church was built in the late 1800s and does not have a cemetery close by, so it could be the wrong one.

 Right or wrong, it was beautiful inside.  All of the churches we visited for family history looked well cared for and still in use.  This is not the case with all the churches in England.  We saw a church for sale and other beautiful stone churches that had been remodeled into a radio station, a pub, a furniture store and a print shop.  Christianity is declining in England and many churches are no longer needed.

 Some of Brandan's ancestors attended the Methodist New Connexion Church.  Brandan decided against trying to find it.  The church found us, though, when we parked across the street from it on our way to another destination.

Brandan is a descendant of William Fowler.  He wrote the hymn "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet."  Brandan knew from a family story that William had been a cutler in Sheffield.  Before our trip, he researched a little and learned that although there used to be thousands of knife manufacturers in Sheffield, over time, these businesses had consolidated and only a few remain.  The oldest company in the area William Fowler worked was called J. Adams, Ltd.  Their company began in the 1700s.   Brandan emailed them before we came to see if they had any old records and if he could visit.  He did not hear back from them and we decided to go anyway.  The shop was in a dingy neighborhood.  

 However, the bright red door, freshly painted, gave us confidence the building was still occupied. 

 Inside Brandan met Josa, one of the managers.  She couldn't help him with employee records, they only keep records for 7 years, but she did give Brandan and Joe and tour of the factory (too dangerous for kids) where they saw the knives being made start to finish.  Sheffield has been famous for their quality knives since the middle ages.  While Josa was showing us some finished knives, a local shopkeeper named Paul Iseard stopped by to pick up knives to sell in his shop.  He loves knives, knows a lot about their history and is also an amateur genealogist.  He invited us to stop by his shop when we finished at the factory.  Brandan took this photo on his tour.  It shows a man grinding the blade on a knife.  

 Here's Paul's Shop which specializes in Sheffield cutlery.

 Paul spent about an hour talking to Brandan.  He helped Brandan find William Fowler on the 1861 census.  It listed his occupation as knife grinder.  It also gave his address.  Most cutlers worked close to home so Paul made a guess about which shop William might have worked for.  Paul even gave Brandan a knife that was made in the very shop.  Such a welcome blessing to find the one person whose double interest in knives and family history helped Brandan learn more about William Fowler.

We found the headstone of Henry, Harriet and James Bradshaw at the Burngreave Cemetery in Sheffield.  The cemetery has a great online map which made it easy to locate the graves.  Henry and Harriet's daughter, Ellen, married William Fowler.

 Wigan is a small town near Preston where Brandan's Rigby ancestors lived.  They have a small research library.  We stopped at a mall and bought soccer gear from the Wigan team before going to the library.  This was a good choice since there was better parking at the mall than at the library.

 Brandan was able to find a marriage certificate at the library before it closed.

Here is some living family history in the making.  Brandan's cousin, Paul, lives in Northern Ireland.  Sofi and Brandan stayed with Paul and Paul's mother, Kathleen, when they visited Northern Ireland 4 years ago.  Paul often comes to the Preston temple so Brandan let him know when we would be in Preston with the hope we could meet up.  Paul thought it would work for him, but we didn't hear from him after we arrived.  By lucky coincidence (or not a coincidence) Paul was in the same temple session we attended.  We met him for lunch later that day.

Paul made balloon toys for all the kids.  Flowers for the girls and gorillas for the boys.

 When we left Preston, all the kids except Gibson popped their balloons so we could throw them away.  Gibson wanted to keep his so we told him he could carry it with him as long as it lasted.  Against the odds, Mr. Monkey made it all the way home, even after getting stuck on the conveyor belt when he went through security at Heathrow.

Becky hung a map in our apartment in Preston and colored in our traveling routes,  We made a pretty big loop through the country, driving over 1400 miles.  Every day has treasured memories.  We barely saw anything compared with the possibilities.  Great Britain is too old with too much history compressed on top of history.  The only solution is to go back.

The North

This was our home base for the next 8 days-- the Centenary Mill apartments in Preston, England.  The apartments are built in an old cotton mill.

The building had a large entry way that looked like it preserved the original tile walls from the mill.

The inside of the mill was modern.  Each group of apartments opened onto a staircase that was open to the air.

A Lamborghini was parked in a nearby apartment building in this working class neighborhood.  We're curious who lives here.

Our first outing in Preston was a trip to do baptisms at the Preston England temple.  The temple is in the nearby town of Chorley.  It's part of a large complex that includes a stake center, distribution store, family history center, the British MTC and housing for temple patrons.  Sarah waited with Gib and Helen while the rest of us went inside.  Sarah, Joe, Becky and Brandan returned a week later to do a session.

The temple grounds are beautifully landscaped.

 This is Gib sitting on a bench at the temple.

 Preston is the site of the first baptisms in England.  There's a small memorial in the Japanese Garden at Avenham park.

 The first baptisms were performed near here in the River Ribble.

Preston is home to the Museum of Lancashire.  Located in the old courthouse, it had a great variety of displays, ranging from viking artifacts found nearby to a history of the Lancashire Guards to life size replicas of the trenches built in France during WWI (complete with dead horse smell!)  Zina, Helen and Abe dressed up for a mock trial.  Zina is the judge, Helen was the prosecutor and Abe was the defendant as well as his own attorney.  We think Abe is actually wearing the judge's outfit and Zina and Helen are wearing the attorneys' robes.

 Preston is near the coast and our landlord recommended Lytham St. Anne's as a great day trip.  Our map also called the town Lytham St. Anne's.  Hah!  It's actually 2 towns, close together, which wouldn't matter too much, except Joe drove to Lytham and Brandan drove to St. Anne's.  It took us a a little time to figure out we couldn't find each other because we were in different towns.  Once we met up, we took a walk along the River Ribble.  It's very wide here as it empties into the sea.  In this photo we are in Lytham.

 We walked to a windmill.  Lytham St. Anne's were fishing villages before trains were invented.  The trains made traveling easier and they became a popular vacation spot for wealthy people.  The working class vacationed in nearby Blackpool.  The villages are full of beautiful brick Victorian houses.  The day we were there started out wet and cold.  We ate lunch in our cars and planned on driving home.

 Fortunately for us, the sun came out before we could drive away and we spent the rest of the day in Lytham St. Anne's.  We were parked near Lowther Garden, another beautiful English park.  Gibson tried out the miniature golf course.  The Brits call this crazy golf.

 The rest of us were intrigued by lawn bowling.  We saw 4 people rolling balls across a very smooth square lawn.  Brandan stopped and asked how to play.  The idea is fairly simple.  One person rolls a white ball (the jack) anywhere on the field.  Then everyone has 2 balls to try to roll as close as possible to the jack as possible.  We played in pairs and the closest ball to the jack won a point for that team.

 The balls are not spherical or symmetrical and the field is higher in the center than the edges.  It was easy enough for everyone to play and challenging enough to keep everyone's interest.  This is a photo of Joe taking his turn.

 Next we drove to St. Anne's.  A rock garden was in between the car park and the beach, and the kids loved scrambling on the rocks.

 The weather had changed completely and the afternoon was warm and sunny.  The kids built little sandcastles and looked for seashells.

 These cute huts were available for rent along the beach.  Each one had a sink, a table and benches inside.  They would make a great meeting spot for a day at the beach.

 Our longest day trip was to Sunderland in Durham County.  It's on the north eastern coast of England.  It rained the whole day we were in Sunderland so we stayed inside at the Sunderland Museum and a nearby mall while Brandan researched his family at the records office.  This is a photo of Sofi and Abe inside the arboretum at the museum.

 We saw beautiful landscapes all over the country.  Fields like this one ringed in stone walls were typical.  We saw more sheep than cows.

 One of our day trips was to the Lake district about an hour north of Preston.  Beatrix Potter is probably the Lakes' most famous resident and a huge benefactor to preserving the Lakes.  We planned to drive to her farm at Hill Top.  Little did we know that there are 3 places named Hill Top around Windermere Lake.  Only one of them is Beatrix Potter's farm.  Sarah and Joe put the postal code in their GPS and headed off.  They took an interesting route along a one lane road (one lane for 2 lanes of traffic), but they made it.  We googled Hill Top and ended up circling the town of Windermere for an hour.  It took a while to figure out where we went wrong and to connect with Sarah and Joe.  We decided it would be too complicated to try to meet up and by the time we finally made it to the real Hill Top, we'd have wasted most of the day driving.  We decided to make the best of where we were.  Hard to sulk for too long when you're in a beautiful garden like this one.

 Lunch at the Royal Oak revived us.  Brandan and Becky ordered the Ploughman's lunch, a traditional  British lunch.  The things that look like cubes of butter are blocks of cheese.  The black food in a paper cup is pickle relish.  It also came with a meat pate, a pickled onion, salad, an apples and baguettes.  We used the ingredients to make our own sandwiches.

 Parking was expensive everywhere we went in England.  The museums and botanical gardens we went to were free though, which Becky liked to remind anyone who complained about the price of parking.  This is a photo of Abe paying for parking in Ambleside.  The kiosks accept coins or credit cards.

 We had time for a short hike before we tried to meet up with Sarah, Joe, Zina, Helen and Gibson.  We took a short walk up to Stock Ghyll Falls.

 Hiking in Britain takes you right through the farmers' pastures.  To prevent a gate being left open and animals getting lost, hikers climb over stiles to get over the stone walls instead of going through a gate.  Most stiles look like wooden stepladders set over a wall.  This fancy stile had stone steps built into the wall.

 At the top there was an ingenious dog gate.  You could lift the board to make a gap big enough for a dog to get through.

On another day, we drove to Sheffield in Yorkshire.  We ate lunch in the Botanical Gardens.  Sofi read while the kids played and the grownups took cat naps.

This statue was in the center of the rose garden at the gardens.  The tree trunk is covered with small birds and animals.

These two interesting creatures are crawling out of the trunk.

 We spent a couple of hours in Wigan, a medieval town near Preston.  We would have spent longer, but everything in town closes at 5:30 pm.

We saw a lot in 2 weeks, but sometimes the kids just needed a break.  Besides Sundays, we had a couple of quiet days where we stayed close to home.  The kids liked reading, watching movies and playing video games when they were home.  This soccer game was their favorite.

Hip Hip Hooray for Joe and Brandan who drove on the wrong side of the road with stick shifts on narrow roads around roundabouts and through traffic!  They both drove Skoda station wagons.  The cars ran on diesel gas.  We appreciated their fuel efficiency since gas cost over $7 a gallon.